The Korean people are an ethnic group originating in East Asia. Most Koreans speak the Korean language.
Welcome to CWAnswers
CWAnswers is your guide to the sprawling world wide web. The directory aims to provide a useful guide made by users. You can share your knowledge as well - simply sign up and edit your first entry. For questions just contact the team at support - at - cwanswers.com.
Weblinks for Koreans
Top 10 for Koreans
Things about Koreans you find nowhere else.
Select content modules
The Korean people are an ethnic group originating in East Asia. Most Koreans speak the Korean language.
Names
South Koreans call Koreans Han-guk-in (lang: 한국인; lang: 韓國人)–or simply 한인/Han-in for South Koreans living abroad–or informally Hanguk saram (lang: 한국 사람; lang: 韓國 사람), while North Koreans call Koreans Chosŏn-in (lang: 조선인; lang: 朝鮮人) or Chosŏn saram (lang: 조선 사람; lang: 朝鮮 사람). See Names of Korea, Korean romanization, Hangul;한글 and Hanja;한자.
Origins
Koreans are believed to be descendents of Altaic- or proto-Altaic-speaking tribes, linking them with Mongolians, Tungusics, and Turks. Archaeological evidence suggest proto-Koreans were Altaic-language-speaking migrants from south-central Siberia, who populated ancient Korea in successive waves from the Neolithic age to the Bronze Age.
Genetic Studies
Recent advances in the study of polymorphisms in the human Y-chromosome have produced evidence to suggest that the Korean people have a very long history as a distinct, mostly endogamous ethnic group with successive waves of people moving to the peninsula and three major Y-chromosome haplogroups.
Korean males display a very high frequency of a derived subclade, Haplogroup O2b1* (P49) belonging to Haplogroup O2b. In fact, Haplogroup O2b1* comes close to being the modal Y-chromosome haplogroup in Korea, occurring in approximately 35% of all Korean males.
Another equal high frequency haplogroup is Haplogroup O3. In some history classics and family records there are people moving from China during wartime or bad rulers. Some Korean surnames are same as Chinese and some claim Chinese origins.
Haplogroup C3 have a moderate frequency. Haplogroup C is in East Asia before the Haplogroup O.
Other haplogroups have low frequencies.
Most Koreans and part-Koreans still display phenotypes suggesting Altaic origins.Fact: date=July 2008 These features include higher cheekbones, and the Mongolian spot, a genetic predisposition for a bluish birthmark on the lower body which remains until early childhood; however, the Mongolian spot is also extremely common among non-Altaic people of Chinese, East African, Native American, or East Indian ancestry.
Regional differences
Distinct regional differences, culturally and politically, exist among the Koreans, as they do among other ethnicities.
Within South Korea, the most important regional difference is between the Gyeongsang region, embracing Gyeongsangbuk-do and Gyeongsangnam-do provinces in the southeast, and the Jeolla region, embracing Jeollabuk-do and Jeollanam-do provinces in the southwest. The two regions, separated by the Jiri Massif, nurture a rivalry said to reach back to the Three Kingdoms Period, which lasted from the fourth century to the seventh century A.D., when the kingdoms of Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla struggled for control of the peninsula.
